Year in Review: Best Movie Posters

by Nathaniel R

Movie posters may be an endangered artform since movies are seldom chosen from lobby posters or slapped on DVD covers anymore. Most people see only those interchangeable rectangles of movie star faces deployed by Netflix or Hulu in scroll bars. Nevertheless we still love the way posters at their best can brand or encapsulate a movie, become iconic pieces of art in their own right (rare), or cleverly tease or suggest the kind of experience you'll be having when you watch the movie.

Movie posters are often lazy so we want to cheer the good ones. Some titles that missed the following list but remain noteworthy are:  Benedetta which arranged the text in an invisible crucifix frame, Annette, which memorably placed its romantics underneath a tidal wave, the teasers for The Matrix Resurrection and Black Widow  which went minimalist and flat but impactful, Swan Song and The Eyes of Tammy Faye for the way they presented the main character's face while also obscuring it emotionally, and the graphic whatsthis? boldness of both Titane and Tragedy of Macbeth.

The best movie posters of the year after after the jump...

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Tweet the Season

Tweet of the Year incoming!

time to check twitter pic.twitter.com/DEljkvkb9R

— what are you ᑐᑌᑎᑕ (@clumsyghost_) December 20, 2021

Hahahaha. But seriously Twitter is good for somethings. Unexpected moments of frivolity, silly memes, amusing notes about movies and television, mutual lust appreciation societies for celebrities, tweet threads that can become great movies (like Zola) and so on. So, anywhere, here are some tweets we enjoyed this holiday week...

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25th Anniversary: "The Portrait of a Lady"

by Nick Taylor

Happy Holidays! We are celebrating a very dear, tumultuous season - awards season - and the current wave of critics prizes has left us with some very exciting developments. It’s perhaps not the biggest shock that Jane Campion’s austere, sensual Western The Power of the Dog has become such a critical darling. It’s the first time in nearly two decades that one of Campion’s phone is in serious consideration but the film’s remarkable showing with awards bodies and the sheer number of Best Director wins she’s accrued are both tremendously deserved and, given the overall trajectory of her career, something of a surprise. 

Releasing her first film since 2009’s Bright Star (and after showrunning the acclaimed series Top of the Lake for two seasons), Campion’s favor with the Academy and critics at large has shifted wildly over the years. As rapturously as The Piano was received, her 1996 bold, purposefully hard-edged adaptation of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady scuttered a lot of that goodwill, and as abrasive as that film is, I can’t for the life of me understand why this torpedoed her prestige reputation so badly...

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Christmas today and Christmas back then...(at the movies)

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE.

This picture has nothing to do with the post but it's Nicole Kidman three Christmases ago. Cheers!

Years ago it was decided that we couldn't be celebrating movie anniversaries with utter randomness at the Film Experience so we committed to 10th, 25th, 50th, and 75th, and 100th parties. We stray often, especially if we're busy on "projects" like a Smackdown or what not, so this decision was useless and we'll probably drop it next year. Broader movie culture wouldn't play along anyway, celebrating all sorts of odd anniveraries (17th! 36th!) in order to just keep celebrating the same things over and over again. This is all a long way of getting around to the conceit of this post (GET ON WITH IT) which is

On this Christmas day in showbiz history, what was going on...

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What If?: When Meryl Streep / Michelle Pfeiffer Almost Starred in "Evita"

by Gabriel Mayora

On Christmas day, twenty-five years ago, Evita (1996) premiered nationwide in theaters. The musical adaptation was helmed by Alan Parker and international superstar Madonna was its leading lady. For her divisive star turn, the actress was famously awarded a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy over Frances McDormand (Fargo), who went on to claim the Academy Award in the equivalent category a couple of months later. Yet, Madonna’s name was left out of the Academy’s Best Actress line-up, suggesting the casting and Madonna's pop stardom may have proven too controversial for the group. 

Much like Effie White, Fantine, and Velma Kelly, Eva Perón is the kind of role that appears destined to win awards sight unseen. What happened, then?

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